Guild Wars 2

@Swagg.9236:
To clarify, what I meant by “count-down timer” was the Recharge cooldown.

Looking over at the skill mechanics, it’s interesting that you chose to give Rocket Turret a 35 second CD, but only a 15 second duration before self destruct.

I had never thought of anything less than 100% turret uptime before your post, but it does bear some consideration. As it stands with the current Engineer Turret implementation, analysis of the

• damage,
• turret health,
• lack of stat scaling, and
• generally sub-par Toolbelt abilities,
  you can definitely tell that ArenaNet intended turrets to be a semi-permanent “pet” entity.

That was the reason for my post re-imagining them as fully disposable gadgets. Freed of the possibility that the Engineer could place a turret in PvE, then go AFK and farm up a storm, and the sheer point-control possibilities of turrets in sPVP if left alone, ArenaNet’s balance team could then work with them as a temporary boost to an Engineer’s Area Control and Area Denial capabilities.

In this way, ArenaNet could keep turret health, lack of stat scaling, and even base damage if Turrets became fully disposable.

Your idea of less than 100% uptime for turrets is actually quite sound. For one, it further emphasises mobility of play, and active play at that.

• It would encourage Turret Engineers to pick up turrets close to the very end of their lifespan. (However, it might “Force” Engineers to do so from a cooldown-reduction standpoint, so that’s a negative consideration to think about)
• From a PVP standpoint, destroying an Engineer Turret is now even more of a priority (Assuming buffs were made to the threat Turrets pose)
• Turret Overcharge can now be thought of as a way to extend the lifespan of a turret if they were to be invulnerable during Overcharge.

The only difference I would make to your turret overhaul would be changing the Condition that Rifle Turret inflicts on Overcharge. Assuming that Turrets keep their lack of stat scaling, implementing a Damage Over Time condition that simply increases a turret’s ability to deal damage doesn’t add to the Utility that Overcharge is supposed to bring.

I run Rocket Turret underwater, and in certain dungeons, solely because of the control Overcharged Rocket Turret shots bring. Knockdown spam can strip Defiance pretty quickly. To that end, I would rather that Rifle Turret’s Overcharge instead inflict Cripple.

Maskaganda.2043:

Im not argueing with that, it was hardly the point anyway. the point was that the whine about hgh seems to be more than it actually deserves since there are plenty of ways to stack might and hgh requires quite the commitment in terms of trait allocation and runes to pull off. hell, engies can stack just as much might without even going into hgh.

Quoted for truth, since there are plenty of builds out there, mine included, that do not rely on HGH at all. In fact, I used to run 30 points in Alchemy not to get HGH, but to get Cleaning Formula 409 after Invigorating Speed and Deadly Mixture, so that I could have a Stun AND Immobilise clear on my Elixir R. The 5% extra Boon Duration was pretty nice as well.

The keystone to any Might Stacking build is NOT, in fact, any old Engineer GM trait, because otherwise, no other class could stack Might as high, or as long.

The key is in Boon Duration/Might Duration, and the Sigil of Battle.

I ran a Scepter/Dagger Might stacking build with my Elementalist, and the way I build up to 25 stacks is far, far different to how I would do it for my Engineer. (Ring of Fire, Sigil of Battle, Spam Blast Finishers).

The Engineer just so happens to have a few more options, and thus, builds, to stack Might to ramp up his damage. But I think that you will find that across all classes, across all builds that aim to stack Might, that there will be one constant: the Sigil of Battle.

I do think, however, that Might Stacking the way it is happening in the Boon Spam Mesmer build, or Blood is Power Necro, or the Engineer (Sickman Syndrome/HGH, etc.) does need to be addressed. For the Engineer, especially, because it is clear from our Power Scaling of skills that Might Stacking was an intended mechanic for Kits.

Breaking the back of 100% uptime 18-25 stacks of Might builds through addressing Sigil of Battle will be the first step among many of finally eliminating the “Hybrid Tax” for Engineers. It will allow the balance team to bring the Power Scaling of Engineer skills up to be competitive with other classes without fear.

Then again, Anet might not, and instead take away yet another competitive tPVP build for the Engineer. I might actually have to run FT/EG/Net turret/Healing Turret and stack Might like I would for my Elementalist.

JubeiTM.5763:

Grackleflint.4956:

I remember being super excited when I figured out you can use #5 mid-stomp.

What do you mean?

FT#5 is a PBAoE blind with 0 cast time, meaning you can swap to FT mid stomp and cast it. Lots of downed state abilities are negated with blind due to a projectile nature. It’s like a weak version of the Elixir S stomp on a shorter CD.

@Seras;
I do the same thing, although I don’t use the Flamethrower and use the Grenade Kit instead because it offers better hybrid Power/Condi damage compared to the FT. Running Grenade Kit and another kit in your utilities such as Elixir Gun triggers Sigil of Battle.

Running a variant of Sickman Syndrome

Here is how I stack Might:

1. A swipe of kit swaps from Med Kit -> Grenade Kit -> Elixir Gun does not trigger the Global Cooldown, triggers Enhance Performance, Runes of Altruism, and Sigil of Battle.
2. I get 12 might stacks instantly if I do this in combat and my ICDs are up.
3. 10 seconds later, another swipe will net me another Battle and Altruism proc
4. 5 seconds later, my Speedy Kits and Invigorating speed can be procced.
5. Afterwards, just swipe every 5 seconds to trigger absolutely every kitswap trait on ICD.

Average might stacks in combat – 18-21 without Boon Duration food, occasionally spiking to 24 with food and if ICDs align (usually around 25 seconds into rotation). Permanent vigor, permanent Swiftness. High boon duration (75% with food, 55% without) also means high Fury (Drop stimulant) and Regeneration (Healing Mist) uptime for a little more damage.

Playing the build: Learn a 5 second tempo to maintain your might stacks and your swiftness and vigor. The hardest thing about this build is tunnel-visioning into your kit skills and forgetting to swap to Pistol/Shield when you need it. Those blinds, blocks and reflects can save your life, but can throw off your tempo due to their channeling.

I’m just going to repost this from my other thread. Turrets are far from being slot-able right now, but if the following changes happened, I might just take them for a spin.

What if turrets were instead balanced around them being fully disposable?

Let us imagine now the following:

• Placing a turret down begins to tick down the cooldown for the turret. At the end of the cooldown, the emplaced turret self-destructs.
  This change would make AOE damage destroying turrets a lot less crippling than previously. In PvP, this would encourage opponents to destroy turrets as soon as they are placed. This would be fully intended, because damage going to turrets is not going to the engineer.

• Picking up a turret reduces its current cooldown by 50%
  This change is mostly WvW and PvP focused, where smart opponents exist. In addition to the first change, this could result in some clutch moments where the engineer shaves crucial seconds off his cooldowns if the opponent targets the turret. In PvE, this would increase engineer mobility and allow the engineer to set up his turret base in different locations more often.

• Turret overcharges reset the attack timer on the turret, but destroy the turret at the end of the overcharge duration. However, turrets are invulnerable to damage whilst on overcharge.
  This change is the most dramatic one, and in my view the one thing that will make turrets an attractive slot choice. It seems silly, but bear with me for a moment.
• Overcharges making the turret invulnerable would finally eliminate the annoying chance that a turret can be destroyed during overcharge. Resetting the attack timer will also lead to more clutch plays in PvP.
• The self-destruct at the end of overcharge is to balance the fact that turret CD will be ticking down the whole while. It also emphasises the engineer’s class flavour to have their gadgets destroy themselves at the end of giving an enhanced performance.

And finally, a new Grandmaster trait for Turret Engineers.

Remote Redeployment

• The Engineer may select a turret to be recalled from range. The turret is recalled to the engineer as a bundle, which may be placed at the Engineer’s location. Placing the turret will reset the placement cooldown.
• The turret is fully repaired upon recall. Overcharge cooldown is reduced by 50% when turret is placed.

• This trait would allow engineers to save turrets under threat from AOE
• There is inherent synergy (!!) with the trait Deployable Turrets. Need to move your turret, but don’t want to reset your attack cooldown? Pick it up from far away and throw it where it’s needed.
• Halving overcharge cooldowns is where we begin cooking with gas. This will open up the possibility of engineers assaulting points in sPVP, not just defending them. Pack up your turrets remotely and throw them onto a defended point, overcharged, for maximum lulz.
• This trait assumes that other turret changes, such as turrets being invulnerable whilst overcharged, self-destruction upon ending of overcharge, and cooldowns ticking upon turret placement were also implemented.

As far as traits go, it would be:

1. Build defining
2. Open up new playstyles of the turret engineer
3. You can now assault nodes in PVP with turret engineer.
4. You can now use turrets in PVE without being unviable and immobile
5. You can now use turrets in WVW without them being instantly destroyed by AOE
6. It will also finally give engineers a reason to invest 30 points into inventions

The reason why I bring up Melee weapon choices for Engineers is manifold:

• There are only 3 weapon choices for Engineer’s right now: Rifle, Pistol Shield
• Engineer has no weapon swap, so it is dependant on Kits for true versatility

Engineers as a class currently lacks the following:

• A dearth of Leap Combo Finishers, which decreases the team synergy possible running in a group
• A complete lack of Whirl Combo Finishers, which is one of the best team support Finishers in the game due to Bolt generation.
• A dearth of reliable distance closers and distance creators, given the range Engineers must fight in (Mid range). Even Ranger, the supposed “long range” class, has weapon skills and options to close or widen the distance between themselves and foes.
• A deplorable lack of weapon skills and associated traits

The fact that you would not support more weapon options for Engineers is baffling. New weapon choices open up the possibility of designers adding additional ways to play, even additional roles. Are you implying that you would rather have less options and by extension, build variety?

@Maskaganda
The one fear I have of Anet from reading the Spvp forums is that Anet will only look at the Engineer as a class and see the HGH trait and think, “Oh, this is the problem” instead of looking at the true culprit – Superior Sigil of Battle and Weaponswap on ICD.

The one thing I dislike about Engineer is that the Power Scaling of skills, cooldowns, and trait layout all imply that the class was designed around Might Stacking to deal competitive damage. I think it’s a deplorable state of affairs because it adds an artificial skill floor to the Engineer without increasing class depth.

When you then compare the Engineer to classes like Warrior or Thief or Ranger or Mesmer, whose skills and traits were clearly designed to have Might as a Transient Boost rather than a necessary evil to remain competitive – you get this massive break from the design philosophy of the Might Boon in general, and in fact, Might Stacking is holding the Engineer back from achieving “Equally viable” status in PVE, PVP and WVW right now.

I would love to see a day when Grenades, Elixir Gun, Flamethrower were buffed up to their pre-nerf levels, Enhance Performance reworked, and HGH to supply 5 stacks of Might for only 10 seconds for ~avg 30% uptime after Boon/Might duration AND CDR traits.

Designing a Hybrid Class means a compromise between types of damage (In this case, Power and Condi), but it should NEVER be designed around the abuse of a single boon.

I dislike the new Kit Refinement because it now has negative synergy with that other ubiquitous Engineer Trait, Speedy Kits. A Global ICD that triggers outside of combat basically means that you cannot rely on Speedy Kits to get permanent swiftness.

Given that the other easy to access Swiftness is through Medkit Drop Stimulant, you’re then stuck with 50% uptime. You could try for Elixir B, then stack Boon Duration, but once again, stuck with 66% uptime, and one less Kit.

I would have taken the new Kit Refinement considering that Magnetic Aura every 20 seconds can be an absolute lifesaver given the amount of ranged attacks in the game right now. But making it a GCD? That then trades 2 junk procs (MedKit’s old proc, Bomb Kit’s old proc) for another 2 junk procs (Grenade Kit new proc, Flamethrower new proc)? And losing 2 on demand condition cleanses on top of losing the anti-kiting synergy with the toolkit proc?

The developers themselves stated on GW2Guru’s SOTG that as an Adept Trait, it was too build-defining for so low in the tree, so they purposely added a Global ICD and nerfed Grenade Kit, Elixir Gun’s proc, and absolutely destroyed the primary purpose of Flamethrower Kit’s proc.

Instead of moving it up the tree to Master or Grandmaster and tuning individual procs to break individual builds like 100Nades, they destroyed Multikit builds along with it. I don’t take Kit Refinement out of principle because the trait represents everything that is wrong with the attitude that Anet took trait reworks – Not consolidating and reworking junk traits, not addressing pre-existing trait bugs and introducing new ones, and breaking multiple builds to target a single FOTM build.

It was the Evasive Arcana debacle all over again. Only, even despite repeated nerfs, EA is still one of the most commonly taken GM Elementalist traits today, due to its sheer versatility, build defining quality, and due to its Grandmaster Status.

A new Kit refinement will be a tacit admission that Anet did the Engineer class a dis-service by destroying a class-defining trait instead of moving it up the tree to Grandmaster and reworking individual troublesome procs.

It is highly unlikely that they will do it. But it is good to dream.

I’m not sure why there is so much QQ about HGH at the moment, considering that even if you filled your entire bar with Elixirs, you would only get 2 per Elixir consumed, an extra 1 for Elixir B, and 1 each if you threw them at your feet. That adds up to

• Elixir H, B, C, R – 9 stacks
• Thrown Elixirs – 4
  -Subtotal: 13

Add Enhance Performance, and you get an extra 3
-Subtotal: 16

Add Runes of Altruism (NOT available in PVP, by the way) for extra 3 on Heal
-Subtotal: 19

Now you’ve burned ALL your utility skills and you’re stuck with Pistol/Pistol. You can’t even maintain these 19 stacks, because of Cooldowns on the elixirs exceeding the Might gained. You’d average about 12-15 or so, if you went full Might Duration runes for 90% Might Duration, AND consumed all Elixirs on cooldown. Stat Breakdown as follows:

• 30% flat Boon Duration from 30 points in Alchemy
• 20% Might duration from 2 Runeset bonus of Superior Rune of Fire
• 20% Might Duration from 2 Runeset bonus of Superior Rune of Strength
• 20% Might Duration from 2 Runeset bonus of Superior Rune of Hoelbrak

The right proper way to stack all the way up to 25 and maintain it, is to use

• 1 kit – Allows Weapon Swap mechanic
• Superior Sigil of Battle – Grants 3 stacks of Might for 20 seconds on Weapon Swap (10 second cooldown)

Now we’re cooking with gas.
Superior Sigil of Battle with 90% Might Duration now grants you 3 stacks of Might for 20 × 1.9 = 38 seconds.

This adds another easy 6-9 stacks on top of the average of 12-15. Now you’re sitting at 18-21 stacks of Might comfortably for the entire duration of a fight, spiking up to the maximum of 25 for short periods when Internal Cooldowns align.

Lifeson.4352:

When I have Stability and use Rocket Boots, I get the “Immune” message and I don’t launch back, is this intended? Really? I’m staying away from guardians….

One thing that Guild Wars 2 does spectacularly worse at compared to its predecessor is the accuracy of tooltip information. This extends even to the GW2 wiki, where most of its article content is derived from tooltips that are either inaccurate, or patently False.

Rocket Boots is such an offender.

The Movement component of Rocket Boots is actually a self-inflicted Launch . Stability will negate movement impairing conditions, including Launch.

The self-inflicted Launch is actually contrary to the GW2 Wiki content, which considers Rocket Boots to be a Retreat . Retreat skills always force a backwards dodge roll and grant invulnerability frames ( Evade ).

You will notice that throughout the entire self-inflicted Launch, which is far longer than the 0.75sec of invulnerability frames that Dodging normally grants, that you can still be hit by attacks. Thus, Rocket Boots grants no Evade frames, and is a self-inflicted Launch.

Therefore, when you have Stability on and then trigger Rocket Boots, nothing happens. You are Immune to Launch, so you move no-where. I discovered this as I was levelling my Engineer and still experimenting with Gadgets.

I have never, ever slotted Rocket Boots since.

The final nail in Rocket Boots’ coffin is the fact that the soft CC (Immobilise, Cripple, Chill) Cleanse component applies after the Launch component is triggered.

Movement impairing conditions such as Immobilise, Cripple and Chill apply their movement speed debuff even while a character is controlled by Launch; since even whilst your character is Launched, it is still considered to be moving.

Therefore, activating Rocket Boots will Launch you, then cleanse the snares. If you are snared, tough luck. You go no-where. Even worse, the Launch has a set duration, so you will have basically stunned yourself for the entire duration.

TL;DR: You should never take Rocket Boots expecting it to work like a good stunbreaker. Abuse the Blast Finisher in Smoke Fields to stealth yourself and break LOS in WvW, but use it on its own, and you are basically handing yourself to your enemies on a silver platter.

PS: Acid Bomb from Elixir Gun is 10x better.

Numot.3965:

Elixir gun is defiantly one the best options in the game for removing conditions from your team. That said it might be hard to change without making it too good. Moving fumigate’s removal of conditions and putting that on healing mist would probably be the best. Sometimes its awkward to spray your team (you also miss out on applying vulnerability and poison on the monster at times), its certainly easier to simply stand in the middle of your team, even on the move and hit them with healing mist.

I would counter with the fact that Fumigate is in fact the absolute best condition removal in the game for your team-mates.
Fumigate ticks 5 times, which means a potential 5 (!!!) conditions cleansed. It basically negates condi-burst from Necros and Grenadier Engineers entirely, every 12 seconds. This kind of cleansing is Guardian level.

Moving Fumigate to being PBAoE would almost certainly result in the conditions cleansed to only being 1-2, which suddenly makes it a far, far less attractive. Given that Super Elixir already fills this role of AOE single condi-cleanse, I would argue that Fumigate be left as it is, and either effect the Engineer to a lesser degree (2 conditions cleansed), or to add a single PBAoE cleanse to Healing Mist.

In fact, Healing Mist, at 40 second CD really needs to be a Water Field.
10 second Regeneration granting skills are replete throughout the classes; and 40 second CD with a Water Field would still be considered weak compared to other classes skills.

A 5-10 second Water Field that can then be Blasted for Area Healing would be worth it considering the loss of double Super Elixir from Kit Refinement. It would play no small role in bringing back the party healing/support roles that were killed off by the Kit Refinement change.

I’ve recently hit 80 and gotten into some Exotic equipment. I’m looking to make builds for dungeon running or occasional WvW.

I’ve been running the standard 0/15/0/25/30 DPS S/D or D/D build, with the usual suspects – Signet of Restoration, Arcane Wave, Lightning Flash. Running full boon duration runes to maximise the potential of Bountiful Power. I don’t have Superior Sigils in my weapons yet.

Although the build has been immensely useful for levelling and teaching me rotations and attunement swapping, I feel the time has come to switch it up.

I’ve been theorycrafting a Dagger Focus Aurashare build and I wanted to know what you guys think. I’ve listed a few of my rationales for taking the traits I have taken below.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h1h.d.1g.h1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7o.1n.7o.1g.7o.1n.7o.1g.7o.1n.7o|211.0.1p.64.1p.64.1p.64.1p.64.1c.64|0.a1.a5.u57c.k56|0.0|1l.23.1r.1s.0|e

• I wanted to have superior tankiness due to the lesser control offered by using Focus (No Updraft, no Earthquake), so I took Superior Runes of the Earth for increased toughness, Protection uptime, and for the synergy of my traits at 20% health for the 6th rune bonus of Magnetic Aura

• Dagger Focus offers 2 Auras – Fire Shield (Fire Focus 4), Shocking Aura (Air Dagger 3). Both have 0 cast time, and Shocking Aura in particular can act as a soft counter-burst. Magnetic Leap over Firewall will also grant Fire Shield.

• There are less significant losses to control when switching from off hand Dagger to Focus. Comet is a 2 second daze, Magnetic Wave also Cripples foes in PBAoE, *Gale*’s Knockdown replaces Updraft to a lesser degree (Although Updraft is still ridiculously good, and I will miss it)

• The loss of Evasive Arcana’s PBAoE Burn is made up for by Dagger Mainhand’s Drake’s Breath, and Glyph of Storms. PBAoE Blind is once again, made up for by Glyph of Storms. As for the loss of Cleansing Wave and the Blast Finisher of EA’s Earth attunement Proc, Magnetic Wave makes up for it to a certain degree, as does the trait Stop Drop and Roll

• Casting an Aura grants 6 seconds of Fury and Swiftness (20% boon duration), and 4.2 seconds of Protection. This is then coupled with the traits Elemental Attunement, Arcane Fury and Renewing Stamina to grant an additional single stack of Might, Swiftness, Protection or Regeneration to ensure I am replete with boons to maximise the Bountiful Power trait.

• The boons also apply to nearby Allies thanks to Powerful Auras and the AOE nature of Elemental Attunement

• Superior Sigil of Battle will ensure that I will have around 6-9 stacks of Might before Blasting my Firewall, or taking hits upon the Fire Shield. I could potentially have up to 6 boons on me all ticking down (Might, Fury, Swiftness, Vigor, Regeneration, Protection) which adds up to 12% additional damage thanks to Bountiful Power

I’m interested to hear what you guys think.

I would strongly suggest the addition of escape skills along with a fast snare cleanse if you’re playing WvW, be it from the leapback from Elixir Gun’s Acid bomb, Rocket Boots, or OP blocks such as the Shield offhand or Toolkit’s Gear shield. Without it, expect a single cripple or immobilise to mean your potential death.

You will die a lot to zergs running you down if roaming if you don’t pack escape skills. For an example of how important kiting can be in WvW, check out Koroshi’s kiting video. Positioning, kites, escapes, and escape denial play huge roles in WvW, even more so than power or condi burst. It’s a huge force multiplier than can enable you to win fights.

Phineas Poe.3018:

This is additionally why you should be playing your Engineer as the mid-fielder when not using the Grenade Kit.

It’s funny that you should say that Engineers should be playing as the mid fielder when not using the Grenade Kit, because in WvW, I find it nigh impossible to land grenades beyond 900 range due to a poor internet connection. My Multikit build that runs Med Kit, Grenade Kit, Elixir Gun and Toolkit (Sickman Syndrome might stacking with Altruism, Sigil of Battle, Enhance Performance) works best below 900 range, when I can best guarantee Elixir F, Magnet Pull, Freeze Grenade and Grenade Barrage landing.

But I run solo, or duo with a friend running Shortbow Ranger. It is highly unlikely that I myself will benefit from Cleansing Bolts running solo, which is the real issue with Elixir Gun at the moment, and the one thing that usually kills me, because it will only take 1 Immobilise to put immense pressure on me.

Best Light Field in game or not, the issue remains that Engineers lost an Oh Kitten button when Super Elixir was removed from Kit Refinement. Fumigate cleansing 1-2 conditions on self would bring EG back to the forefront.

Swagg.9236:

GADGETS
Personal Battering Ram

• Recharge reduced from 45 to 40 seconds.
• Now breaks stun.
• On use, the Engineer now hops backwards in the same manner as do Rangers when using [Quick Shot].
• Now grants ¾ seconds of evasion.
• Cast-time removed (now instant; can be cast while performing other actions).
  • Despite having an instant cast-time, using PBR will still interrupt other actions due to its forced hop animation. The instant cast-time is mainly to bring it into functional line with other Stun-breaks. I think that the skill’s forced animation aspect will balance its inadvertent (or unavoidable) instant cast-time buff by preventing excessive skill/CC chaining or at least capping skill/CC chaining since the enemy knockback and the Engineer’s forced hop would almost cancel each other out concerning “time spent not being able to use skills freely.”

What you’ve just suggested there basically makes PBR a stronger version of Updraft (Elementalist Dagger offhand Air 5). In a Utility Slot. Stronger because Updraft does require cast time, whilst your PBR will make it a Stunbreak as well.

Updraft has been a staple setup for burst damage for Elementalists running D/D or S/D since daphoenix popularised the 0-10-0-30-30 triple cantrip build. Updraft into → Fire Attunement → Burning Speed → Fire Grab was one of the first burst rotations I learned as D/D Elementalist.

I fail to see how the “forced” roll back, that gives invulnerability frames, will not do the same. Hell, I figure that there’ll be something involving 2H rifle and Static Discharge.

Not that such a suggestion is bad; far from it. Making PBR the Engineer’s version of Updraft will finally make it slot-able. But to say that the “forced hop” in any way prevents skill-chaining for bursts is patently false.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

They could just triple the range that RB knocks you back, oh and fix the bugs attached to RB. But since something as simple as this seems to be beyond Anet’s abilities, just make Rb Ride the Lightning with some Engineer flair. Maybe make it Ride the Gear, where you throw a gear and surf it for 1200 range. I don’t know what I am even saying, back to the jagermeister.

I’d rather that Rocket Boots did not knock me back at triple the range (2700!!) because that would be certain death in WvW when fighting near cliffs, and a massively overpowered escape that would see the nerfhammer come down the very next patch.

There are 2 absolutely critical fixes that will make Rocket Boots slot-able for anything other than Rocket Kick:
1) Make the cleansing of soft CC happen BEFORE the self-launch component. Sure, RB cures Cripple, Chill, and Immobilise, but you go NOWHERE, and go only 100 units as a result, setting yourself up for a followup burst.
2) Actually, remove the self launch component completely, and instead make it a 900 unit “charge” that uses the Whirlwind attack targeting Reticule. Then increase the cooldown to 50 seconds. Give it the Burning Speed animation, but add no damage component to the end of the charge.

Now you have a mini Ride the Lightning for a 10 second longer cooldown, uses a utility slot instead of a Weapon Skill slot, and it’s still better than what we have right now.

Light Fields are pretty much the worst Combo Field you can try to combo with a Projectile Finisher right now. Even Ethereal Bolts in PvE is better. The reason for this is that the best Light Fields – Line of Warding, Sanctuary, Wall of Reflection – are best interposed between ourselves/allies and the enemy. Shooting through it does absolutely nothing, because our allies would be on the wrong side.

As for Super Elixir and Tranquiliser Dart being a 20% projectile finisher – you really don’t want to be at melee range with an enemy firing Tranquiliser Darts. And with only 1/5 Darts actually becoming a Cleansing Bolt, it’s more likely that the field will have run out before you get a good combo. Not to mention that the best condition pressure is applied at close range; i.e. other Engineers running grenades; or Necromancers.

But that’s a discussion for another thread.

I would 100% support Fumigate being a self-condition cleanse of 1-2 conditions. Ever since the loss of Kit Refinement and 2 condition cleanses on kit swap, the FT/EG build has become far less viable, especially if running with Med Kit; since you can’t quickly cleanse Immobilise reliably.

As for Cleansing Mist also cleansing a condition; I’d rather it be a 25 second cooldown 3 second Water Combo Field. The loss of double Super Elixir nerfed Elixir Gun support healing pretty hard. I’d rather that that capability came back in another form.

WonderfulCT.6278:

They can already melee with the tool kit. In addition this kit has a skill called magnet which pulls enemies to the engineer. It can also be used underwater.

Plus there is not really any safe range distance. Most classes can easily close the distance between themselves and another player.

Engineers are quite lacking in engagement skills right now. For a mid-range class (not my words, the developers), Engineer lacks strong distance closers.
I do acknowledge that Magnet Pull exists on a kit, however, I think you will notice that it does not change the Engineer’s position, instead bringing a foe into an Engineer’s range. Magnet pull does you no good against a foe with Stability/Defiance, or who dodges in PvP or WvW. Distance closers are agnostic of a foe’s defensive boons, and improve our ability to position ourselves.

Rocket Boots and Acid Bomb, being leaps backward (they aren’t even Leap finishers), are primarily escape tools, and pretty poor ones at that, given that they are still affected by soft CC such as Chill, Cripple and Immobilise. Please read the Opening Post to see why I am advocating new Weapon Choices and Weapon Skills.

It isn’t because I feel Engineer’s are weak in Melee, far from it. Toolkit’s melee auto attack does more damage than Warrior’s Mace auto-attack chain with better power scaling, and can be traited for perma-cripple:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mace_Smash
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smack

TL;DR Engineer Melee isn’t weak. But Engineer positioning through gap closers and openers could do with some new skills right now

I’d just like to start off by posting a weapon skill design for Main Hand Shield. I’ve had a few ideas floating around for it, but I’ve settled upon the concept and skill design flavour of an Electrified shield, because Shield Offhand already features skills based around Electricity.
I figure the skill design will be based around disruption, interruption and team support, given the utility Off-hand brings. There’s also class flavour potential here, with only the Engineer being crazy enough to bring 2 shields to a fight.

The world of Tyria is rough. Time to double your protection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_u0tDx3Ky0

Shield 1 will be a standard 3 hit chainskill auto-attack.
Electric Bash 0.5 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with an electrified shield. Animation shows Engineer striking foe with the boss of the shield, withdrawing to strike again with
Edge Bash 0.5 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with the edge of the shield, inflicting Weakness for 1 second. Animation shows the Engineer bringing the shield forward like a punch to strike a foe.
Electric Drive 1 second attack. Engineer strikes a foe with a power blow, causing 2 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds.

A short attack chain, along with the potential to stack permanent Weakness and Vulnerability onto enemies gives both offensive and defensive utility to the auto attack chain. Weakness is an under-appreciated condition IMO given that it not only turns normal attacks to glancing blows, it also reduces endurance regeneration by 50%, reducing the kiting ability of enemies, especially in PvP where dodge rolls are life.

Shield 2 will be the distance closer/opener.
Electric Surge is a 900 unit targeted charge. It will use the same targeting reticule as the Warrior’s Greatsword Whirlwind attack, or the Elementalist’s Fiery Greatsword Fiery Whirl.
0.75 sec cast time, Leap finisher, 15 second cooldown.
It will end on impact with a foe. On impact, Electric Surge deals damage and Dazes a foe for 2 seconds.
During the animation, the Engineer will be encased in the same Aura as an Elementalist’s Shocking Aura. Projectiles striking the Engineer mid-animation will stun the enemy from which they originated for 1 second if they are within 600 units. However, it will still be affected by soft CC, so this is very much an Engagement tool with a view to rushdown enemy ranged foes, rather than to be used as an escape.

Shield 3 will be the team support ability.
Project Absorption Field will be a 150 unit wide, Mobile Projectile destruction wall. Visually similar to the Guardian’s Wall of Reflection, except it does not have a combo field, and it is mobile.
3 second channeled ability, 30 second cooldown
This is a throwback to the Absorb ability.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Absorb
Project Absorption Field chains into
Redirect – 0.75 sec cast time, 40 second cooldown.
Redirect the first absorbed projectile back at a targeted foe.
Reflecting only the first absorbed projectile weakens the skill compared to a full duration reflect, however, I feel this is balanced considering you can shield team-mates with this ability. Doing damage is secondary.

So there you have it. A skill design for main hand Shield. I’d like to see more melee weapon skill suggestions, so bring them on!

Reposting from the other thread, lorazcyk.8927’s suggestions on the torch:

(TL;DR? Scroll down for example main-hand long-range torch skills)

I clicked +1 on your post to show my interest to ANet, though I’d prefer a mainhand torch instead of a mace or hammer.
Why?

• I know a lot of people want a mace or hammer, but unlike others I don’t think that really fits the engineer, though I do understand why others think that. But repairing things with a hammer isn’t exclusive to engineers, other professions do it too, and you wouldn’t repair machinery with a hammer anyway. So to me, it doesn’t make sense.
• Heat and flame is used to create or repair hardware/machinery/welding. Soldering irons and butane torches come to mind. Therefore I think the torch would be more fitting to an engineer than a hammer or mace.
• We only have one mainhand weapon that we can use with our offhand weapons. With a mainhand torch, you’re not stuck with the pistol mainhand anymore.

The Mesmer has a greatsword that behaves like a ranged staff — so why couldn’t we have a mainhand torch?

---

I want a weapon with an auto-attack chain; none of this pistol and rifle auto-attack-with-only-one-skill nonsense!

Here’s an example on how they could create the engineer’s mainhand torch, in this case, a weapon with an auto-attack of 900 range.

Skill 1 in autoattack chain, inspired by Molotov Caulktail
(the word and the link got kittened, so I caulked it)

• light a napalm flask/elixir with your torch, then toss it at your target to damage & burn enemies in the area
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait
• 20% chance of creating a Blast finisher
  (yeah, I know elixirs are supposed to be beneficial, but, but… molotov caulktail!)

Skill 2 in autoattack chain could be:
- AoE, no burning, no blast finisher
- single-target with burning, no blast finisher
Whichever ANet thinks is best.

Skill 3 in autoattack chain inspired by a butane torch

• slightly longer activation time than the other skills in the chain:
• burn a flask/elixir of metal powder and toss it at your target, creating a sickening vapor that damages & poisons enemies in the area
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait
• 20% chance of creating a Poison combo field, in addition to the poison created by the skill

---

Then we have…

Skill 2: Throw your torch at your enemy, damaging & burning them, and leaving a trail of smoke on the way

• ranged attack (as ranged as the “smoke screen” … is it 900? or 1200? I don’t remember)
• 100% chance of smoke screen combo field (starting where you’re standing when using the skill)
• the smoke screen goes in a line parallel to you, from you to the enemy, not perpendicular as it normally is.

Skill 3: Slam your torch on the ground at your location, creating a ring of napalm

• similar to the ranger’s bonfire torch skill
• … but remove combo field since the other skills already have some
• reduce pulses (ticks) to every 2 seconds instead of every second
• cause 1 second of burning with each pulse
• cause 2 or 3 seconds of cripple and bleed when you use the skill (the first pulse), because of the torch splinters
• (another option could be to burn liquid nitrogen with your torch, causing chill and bleeding for 2 or 3 seconds on the first pulse, then bleeding with each pulse. I don’t know… what do you think? )
• AoE has 120 radius, improves to 180 with Juggernaut trait

---

I think this weapon fits the Engineer theme, and provides good synergy with the pistol and shield off-hands available to us, as well as the flamethrower kit.

Maybe you’re thinking, “that’s awesome, make it a kit!”.
But I don’t want more kits, I want another main-hand weapon to use with my offhand shield and pistol!
.

If ANet refuses to create another main-hand weapon, I’d be happy with being able to swap weapons when you don’t have any kits in your utility slots.

(Oh, and bug-fixing would be nice in 2013?!)

There seems to be some measure of talk about giving melee weapon choices to Engineers. The Engineer playstyle, traits and skillset seems to favour range that changes between short and long ranges, and developer interviews in the past seem to reinforce this:
http://www.wartower.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=562
“The main way the Engineer works with that is, that he can get up close to people but he still doesn’t want to stand toe to toe with them.” – Eric Flannum

Similarly, the official website for the engineer seems to emphasise versatility, area control, and engagement at a variety of ranges.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/engineer/

There have been multiple threads in the past few weeks and months calling for Melee options to be added to the engineer. I feel that this is incredibly important because the Engineer skills at present seem slightly lacking in the mid range (flamethrower #1, rifle #3, 4, 5, elixir gun #3, turrets, gadgets). By mid range I mean 300-750 – Far enough to safely range, close enough to hit with most skillshots and GTAoE.
Adding a melee option would allow us to shore up the weaknesses of these skills.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Poll-Engineers-with-hammers/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Why-can-t-engineers-use-hammers-1
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Improving-the-Engineer-How-I-d-Do-It
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Engineer-Sword-Dagger-Bayonette
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Chainsaw-Kit-More-melee-for-Engineers

Engineer is sorely lacking in some reliable distance closers such as charges and leaps and teleports, and certain combo fields and finishers as well, such as Lightning field and Whirl.
Some great ideas are circulating around in the Poll thread for Engineer Hammers
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Poll-Engineers-with-hammers/

I’d like to dedicate this thread to One Hand options for Engineers in order to keep the Hammer thread on topic. There have been some pretty interesting suggestions, such as:
Mainhand Shield

Actually, I’m going to advocate for main hand shield instead… dual-wielding shields would be too awesome.

Powerglove or Chainsaw Kit

Nah, I’d prefer the engine to gain a power glove or chainsaw kit before getting a close range weapon. Kits fit the theme of engineers more than giving them hammers and torches.

Torches (for everyone’s inner pyromaniac)

(TL;DR? Scroll down for example main-hand long-range torch skills)
I clicked +1 on your post to show my interest to ANet, though I’d prefer a mainhand torch instead of a mace or hammer.

So, let’s discuss Main-Hand Melee options for Engineers here!

+1 As I would like to see hammers being added as 2h weapons. Possible skills could include distance closers, AOE knockdown/knockback, as well as cripple and/or weakness.

However, I fear this may step on the toes of 2h Hammer Warriors too much.

That being said, Engineer skills in general are sorely lacking in charges/leaps, whirl finishers, and weaponskill combo fields, so 2h Hammer could go a long way to addressing that.

The hammer could be designed around a “rocket sledge” flavour that features skills that seem to be more of the hammer propelling the engineer, rather than the other way around. Skill design is focused around anti-kiting, sticking to the opponent, and with defensive utility to use for point control in PVP.

Skill 1 could be a 3 attack chain:

• Chainskill 1: 0.75 sec cast. Rocket sledge. Strike your foe with a rocket empowered sledge. Animation carries hammer in a left-right motion ending with the hammerhead behind the engineer to set up the next chainskill.
• Chainskill 2: 0.75 sec cast. Rocket up. Strike your foe with an upswinging low blow that inflicts Weakness for 1 second. Animation ends with hammer in both hands, ready for last skill in chain
• Chainskill 3: 1.5 sec cast. Kneecapper. Attack the legs of your foe with a forward thrust of the rocket sledge, inflicting Cripple for 1 second.

The chain is long – 3 seconds total – because of the cripple on the last chainskill. Damage overall does not need to be too high due to the superior, easily reapplied control through cripple.

*Skill 2 should be the opener skill, a distance closer. *

• Rocket Leap: A 15 second, 900 distance GTAoE leap finisher.
  I don’t feel that there should be any additional control like stun or knockdown due to how “sticky” the chainskill auto chain is already.
  Animation should be modeled after the way Thor from the Marvel Universe flies – that is, by throwing the hammer and using its momentum to carry himself into the skies. Breaking the conservation of momentum aside, adding a trail of rocket smoke that mists from the hammerhead in flight should allow a greater suspension of disbelief.

Skill 3 should be a short duration projectile destruction.

• 3 second channel.
• Hammer Whirl is a Whirl finisher that destroys incoming projectiles. Animation should simply be the Engineer spinning the hammer in a figure of 8. Thick black smoke can envelop the engineer to sell the effect.

Skill 4 should be the combo field and flurry attack.

• 2 second cast time. 30 second CD.
• Smoky Flurry sees the engineer swing the hammer in a flurry to generate a 5 second 300Unit AOE Smoke Field around himself and his foe. The Flurry strikes 8 times. The Smoke combo field pulses every second strike to blind for 0.5 second. This has both offensive and defensive utility, similar to Mesmer’s Blurred Frenzy, but gives only a “soft” invulnerability due to the teamfighting ability and the AOE blind of the Smoke combo field.

Skill 5 should be the hard CC.

• 1.5 sec cast time. 40 Second CD.
• Home Run Sledge sees the engineer bring the Rocket Sledge around in a brutal uppercut, launching a foe. Launch is one of the strongest controls in the entire game, serving as a setup for followup burst, or to push foes off control points in PVP. It cannot be stunbroken out of until the Launched foe has stopped moving. This Updraft analogue on a weapon skill will combo well with the other Engineer Launches to make 2h Hammer Engi one of the best point holders.

I wouldn’t mind Slick Shoes Super Speed giving you Stability. A 200% increase in movement speed sounds fantastic until you are immobilised, knocked down, or stunned or feared. It’s a 45 second cooldown wasted in such a case.
Giving stability to Super Speed would also finally bring back Non-RNG stability to engineer, since the loss of Stability to Flamethrower Juggernaut.
I personally don’t use Slick Shoes because I find the active’s cooldown to be too restricting. If I want AOE knockdown/interrupts I could use Shield offhand or Big Ol’ Bomb, both of which have traitable CDR and have a 30 (!!!) second CD and bring additional utility to boot.

Throw Mine is decent as is, but the Proximity Radius is 60 (!!!) units. You would never slot this outside of PVE where you could reliably throw it in the path of incoming mobs; because it sure won’t be triggered by players. The Mine Field toolbelt would be useful also if the Proximity radius was larger than 60 units. Either that, or make the AOE large enough that deploying and detonating it will ensure it is a reliable PBAoE boon removal.
Change the dispersal to a smaller area if needed, but it is entirely possible to miss detonations entirely because the gaps are so many and so large within the field that it basically does nothing. Since the nerf to Mine Field to remove the blast finisher component, I haven’t seen any other engineers slot it at all.

Personal Battering Ram (PBR) is quite possibly the worst possible skill ever for engineers, which as a class already has a huge amount of launches, pushes, and cripples. It doesn’t combo well with the Rifle because you already have Overcharged Shot for Launches if enemies close to melee. It doesn’t combo well with Pistol Shield because you already have Magnetic Inversion for pushbacks. It could work with Pistol/Pistol – Glueshot/Blowtorch, then PBR them back to burn – but even Rocket boots is better because of Rocket Kick.

Maybe if the launch was a PBAoE, or a large, wide arc in front of the engineer? Elementalist’s Dagger off-hand has already proven time and again the usefulness of a PBAoE Launch with some Knocked-Down time in PVE and in PVP.

My main issue with using Gadgets is the fact that they offer such niche utility whilst sacrificing a condition removal or 5 additional kit skills, especially given how weak Mainhand Engineer weapon skills are right now. In a class with low base vitality and few reliable or easy to access condition clears/removals outside of CF409/Elixir C, I just can’t justify slotting one except maybe for Rocket Boots – and even then, only for the Toolbelt’s sick burns.

Seras.5702:

Thanks for the tips.
Regarding FT/Grenades: I was going to run a Rampagers set (prec, pow, cond) because both kits stack great burning or bleeds well, plus the pistol’s attacks. I was then going to supplement that with accesories for survival (ie – Cleric’s ring or something) Thoughts on this?

I run a variant of the Sickman Syndrome build that focuses on Might stacking through abuse of the On Heal trigger through Altruism runes and Explosives X: Enhance Performance.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PVE-The-Sickman-syndrome/first#post1664066

The build focuses primarily on Grenades for damage as it is the best damage engineer has at the moment, but because the only requirement is the Sigil of Battle on the mainhand, and slotting Med Kit, you can use any other damaging kit, really. You can even slot Mainhand Rifle and instead go down Firearms for Rifle Mod and Precise Sights, or get Juggernaut for Flamethrower.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/?2.0|a.1o.h1h.e.1o.h1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71i.1c.71i.1c.71i.1c.71i.1b.71h.1c.71h|411.d1a.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.8c.63|u5ab.5.0.p17.a6|1.7|2d.2f.2v.2i.0|e

The other kit slotted is Elixir Gun for its Regeneration through the toolbelt skill, and the condition clear for your team through Fumigate and the AOE healing of Super Elixir.

I use Boon Duration runes instead of Might duration because I want to maximise the use of Energy Conversion Matrix. You could slot Might duration runes instead and use those 5 points into Tools for the Throw Elixir R reset at 25% health.

My gear isn’t fully optimised yet, but the build stands pretty solid as it is, with a high effective health pool. I’ve taken it into WvW and gotten a few badges with it. In WvW I would slot Toolkit instead of Elixir R, or Elixir S. Invigorating Speed would instead be replaced by Self Regulating Defenses.

Skitza.4069:

I haven’t read the whole tread so I don’t know if it has been suggested but the one change they could make right now that would improve gadgets a lot would be allowing cleaning formula 409 to effect them or adding a similar trait to the inventions line. I know some of them cure random stuff like blind but I really think this would help get them on peoples hot bars.

I’ve thought about this as well, but there are inherent cleanses in certain gadgets already, such as Rocket Boots curing soft CC (Cripple, Immobilise, Chill), Utility Goggles curing Blind. I don’t think Traits is the way to go in this case, because Tools and Inventions are cramped as is. A better way would be to put cleanses into the utility activation itself, and balance it around that.

• Throw Mine detonation could be used on foes to remove boons (just 1 at the moment unfortunately), or detonated under yourself to cure a condition
• Utility Goggles could cleanse Vulnerability on activation along with blind. This would add real duality to the skill, being used as a stunbreaker to counteract burst professions, whilst the toolbelt itself is used for initiation of burst. This could add counterplay, which is something that is lacking in skills at the moment short of things like Corrupt Boon on Necromancers, or Null Field on Mesmers
• Personal Battering Ram has little room for flavour in terms of cleansing certain conditions. I suppose you could make its activation transfer conditions from you to foes, but that is a very Necromancer or Mesmer thing to do.

Seras.5702:

One potential solution I just thought of: let the CD timer start ticking as soon as the turret is placed. Only 1 instance of a turret can exist at a time so dropping it again if already active would destroy the old one. This would allow more turret mobility.

It’s funny that you would mention that, because one of my earlier posts mentioned the same thing:

MonMalthias.4763:

What if turrets were instead balanced around them being fully disposable?

Let us imagine now the following:

• Placing a turret down begins to tick down the cooldown for the turret. At the end of the cooldown, the emplaced turret self-destructs.
  This change would make AOE damage destroying turrets a lot less crippling than previously. In PvP, this would encourage opponents to destroy turrets as soon as they are placed. This would be fully intended, because damage going to turrets is not going to the engineer.

• Picking up a turret reduces its current cooldown by 50%
  This change is mostly WvW and PvP focused, where smart opponents exist. In addition to the first change, this could result in some clutch moments where the engineer shaves crucial seconds off his cooldowns if the opponent targets the turret. In PvE, this would increase engineer mobility and allow the engineer to set up his turret base in different locations more often.

• Turret overcharges reset the attack timer on the turret, but destroy the turret at the end of the overcharge duration. However, turrets are invulnerable to damage whilst on overcharge.
  This change is the most dramatic one, and in my view the one thing that will make turrets an attractive slot choice. It seems silly, but bear with me for a moment.
  Overcharges making the turret invulnerable would finally eliminate the annoying chance that a turret can be destroyed during overcharge. Resetting the attack timer will also lead to more clutch plays in PvP.
  The self-destruct at the end of overcharge is to balance the fact that turret CD will be ticking down the whole while. It also emphasises the engineer’s class flavour to have their gadgets destroy themselves at the end of giving an enhanced performance.

Advent.6193:

I’m surprised they don’t retweak it for Weakness effect. Logic being, your target’s inhaled all of that smoke, and it’s chokin ’em out for a bit. Seems logical.

I would disagree with FT5 inflicting weakness onto foes, because if you look at a lot of the Weakness-inflicting skills in the game, many have the intention of melee suppression (Staff Ele Earth 1, Elixir Gun Engi 1), or as an anti-kiting mechanic since Weakness reduces endurance regen (Thief Crippling Strike and Skale Venom, Warrior Hammer Fierce Blow and Mace Pulverise).

The Air Blast pushback mechanic is already sufficient control given its short cooldown in a class that features heavily into crowd control. I would propose an alternative.

Before I begin I would like to preface my post as to why I don’t take flamethrower. This is an analysis of the skills themselves which make me leery of slotting it in the first place.

• Flamethrower 1 is a 2.25 sec, 10 hit channeling skill, which is suicide against Retaliation. Burning is applied to the last pulse only, making it better as a Power kit rather than a hybrid power/condition damage kit.
• For a mid-close range kit (longest skill range is on Flame Blast and Napalm, at 600 range), there is no possibility of CC reduction or immunity, or failing that, a gap closer. It’s viable in PvE only because mobs will come to you. In WvW, you will be chasing people for a long time without some kind of pull, or immobilise from Rifle/Net Turret
• The Grandmaster trait Juggernaut encourages you to stay in the kit for might stacks, yet there is a combo field Fire in a skillset without inherent finishers.
• There is no range damage mitigation such as reliable projectile destruction or Protection. Before you say it, Air Blast is unequivocally better as an additional CC. Its short duration precludes its use against ranged pressure because most ranged pressure comes as a barrage of multiple small hits, rather than 1 devastating, easy to destroy projectile.
• The toolkit ability Incendiary Ammo procs only 3 times for a 60 second (!!!) cooldown.

Given this, Flamethrower 5 can be reworked in several ways:

• It can reduce ranged pressure through projectile destruction. This is my favoured way of reworking it. Making it like the Elementalist’s Air Scepter 5 will make FT engineers valuable contributors to dungeons, WvW, and may finally open up the door to bunkering with the flamethrower.

• It can be a condition removal. Flamethrower engineers have few methods of mitigating snares and roots. A PbAOE blind and soft-CC breaker opens up counters to Thieves, Warriors and Mesmers. It will also reduce ranged soft CC such as Ranger’s Barrage.

• It can be reworked into the gap closer the FT engineer requires. I would favour a short, CC immune period where the FT engineer moves at double speed; i.e. combining Stability (3 sec) with the Slick Shoes toolbelt Super Speed, leaving a trail of black smoke that blinds foes.
  If you wanted to be boring, you could instead make it similar to Warrior’s GS Bladetrail, or Elementalist FGS Fiery Rush.

Tolmos.8395:

As someone who has run full turrets since day 1 of headstart, I can say I would honestly be ok with traits saying the same if they gave me a hotkey to force my stupid (I mean that literally. They are dumb. Idiotic. No sense at all) turrets to attach a target of my choosing, including NPCs they normally dont shoot (like.. oh… dragons?).

Let me make my turrets NOT shoot inanimate objects and NOT ignore dragons and I’ll be happy!

Speaking as someone who as played the original Guild Wars (Minion Master Necro) through the Factions and Nightfall expansions (didn’t pick up EOTN), I do find it strange that it has been 9 months since launch and yet pet AI does not prioritise called targets.

In GW1, I could call a target for my minions to attack, whilst henchmen would attack my currently attacked target.

It is strange to me that turrets and ranger pets do not inherit this behaviour, instead having their own aggro tables.

jpnova.4572:

I like the idea of the two turret survivability trait being fused into one and adding a GM trait which either gives us the option of making our turrets mobile with increased health and armor, so they follow their Engineers and can survive more hits. Same principle as ranger spirits. They will follow in the arrangement they are set down or arrange with or without Deployable Turrets.

I disagree with the possibility of making turrets mobile as it would defeat their primary design intention, which was to control space. As a semi-permanent entity with a limited attack range, I believe a better Grandmaster trait would have to be one that drastically increases the engineer’s ability to pick up and place down turrets, rather than make them mobile.

How about this?

• Remote Redeployment

The Engineer may select a turret to be recalled from range. The turret is recalled to the engineer as a bundle, which may be placed at the Engineer’s location.

The turret is fully repaired upon recall. Placing the turret again resets the turret overcharge cooldown.

This trait would require a lot of re-coding of turrets, but would finally solve the mobility issues of the turret engineer. I found that it was far too much of a bother to save a turret being attacked. Often a mob would be able to down a turret before I could kill the mob itself, since the toolkit’s repair rate is simply insufficient.

• This trait would allow engineers to save turrets under threat from AOE
• There is inherent synergy (!!) with the trait Deployable Turrets. Need to move your turret, but don’t want to reset your cooldown? Pick it up from far away and throw it where it’s needed
• Resetting overcharge cooldowns is where we begin cooking with gas. This will open up the possibility of engineers assaulting points in sPVP, not just defending them. Pack up your turrets remotely and throw them onto a defended point, overcharged, for maximum lulz.

As far as traits go, it would be:

1. Build defining
2. Open up new playstyles of the turret engineer
3. Finally give engineers a reason to invest 30 points into inventions

To me, Gadgets have always been intended as the “cantrip-equivalent” of the Engineer, providing strong control and escape effects that have 0 or nominal (0.25 sec) cast time.
In essence, Gadgets are the “Peel” skills of the engineer.

Secondary to their utility slot effects are the toolbelt effects that provide additional means to deal damage to the enemy, or further control them (Rocket kick, or oil slick).
To me, the gadget Toolbelt abilities are the “Engagement” effects of gadgets. So you have a real dichotomy here, and increased flexibility.

I would rather that gadgets get their Grandmaster trait through Tools, as it seems like Inventions is the tanking/turret line already, and there are no gadget supporting traits through the Inventions line.

Putting the Gadget Grandmaster trait into Tools would also reduce the cooldown of these strong engagement skills and further emphasise the Tools line, which has been lacking in a compelling Grandmaster set of traits.

Indeed, Armour Mods and Adrenal implant are very defensively oriented traits, and it is strange to put them into a line that features Critical damage % as the secondary effect after the class mechanic.

I have to say that replacing the Grandmaster Inventions trait Rifled Turret Barrels didn’t occur to me, and looking back at Alchemy VII’s Deadly Mixture, it does seem strange that it would only take a Master trait for increases in damage.

If turrets are to stay as they are, balanced around being semi-permanent entities, then a possible Grandmaster trait would be Cooldown reduction of their toolbelt, overcharge, and placement abilities, and an increase to their rate of fire. Turrets are unique skills for the engineer trait wise in that they receive no CDR through traits at all. Even Gadgets can get 20% CDR through Tools III – Speedy Gadgets.

Making the GM trait a CDR trait that also increases turret rate of fire could very well be build defining.

YourOwnFear.2743:

I like this idea but my biggest problem with turrets are their lack of damage. Even with 3200 power and 50 crit damage they hit for next to nothing. I have made builds around them where they would last for an entire fight but the fights go on way too long compared to other specs I can run with power gear (that have better survivability).

I believe the damage on turrets should be doubled if you spec into them. Its not like the firing rate is high so even with double damage they wont be bursting people down in seconds. It would still put their damage way under phantasms with similar limitations. Phantasms are locked to a target and die with them, while our turrets are locked to an area.

Rebalancing turret DPS towards them being fully disposable will allow Anet to revise their damage upwards, just like Mesmer Phantasms. In my view, turrets should have enough damage to apply steady sustained pressure, but not so much as to balance their higher (potential) survivability, and their possibility of overcharge.

My proposed changes would still lock them to an area, but having to resummon them on cooldown will encourage a more active playstyle, and in combination with deployable turrets would enable a turret engineer to assault points, not just defend them.

The last thing I want to address is the turret toolkit skills, and overcharge. In my view, turret toolbelt skills are centered around damage, and expose glaring flaws in a turret engineer’s ability to survive. Toolbelt skills should be a nice complement to slotting the skill, not another button to mash for more damage.

Right now, the Healing turret’s Regenerating Mist (F1) is a 60 second CD Water field that applies regeneration.
In my view this should also cleanse a single condition, as 60 seconds for a 3 second water field is simply too long. It would also give turret engineers another source for condition removal.
Given that the upcoming patch will reduce Cleansing Burst’s cooldown to 20 seconds, I have no complaints about its overcharge.

The flame turret’s Throw Napalm is centered around damage. It is strange to me that this does not generate a short-lived Fire combo field around the point of impact, given that the flame turret’s overcharge generates a smoke field instead.
On the Flame Turret’s overcharge, its AOE of 450 can be useful if an enemy is close, but the main reason I haven’t seen many turret bunker engineers is because smart opponents will engage and destroy an emplaced turret engineer from range, safe from pressure.
Making the overcharge destroy projectiles for 3 seconds of its duration will help relieve some of that.

The Rifle turret’s toolbelt ability Surprise shot is pure damage, and a projectile finisher. It does not add depth to the turret and indeed, Static Discharge engineers love it for its short toolbelt CD rather than the turret’s actual emplaced use.
Increasing its cooldown and making it cripple for a short duration (3 sec) would emphasise the turret’s role more.
The Rifle turret’s overcharge could instead be also changed to cripple foes instead of bleeding them, keeping them in range of the turret for longer.

The Rocket turret’s toolbelt skill is once again, pure damage and adds no depth. For a 60 second CD, I would rather that it Dazed foes for 1 second instead. It would add an interrupt at range that the turret engineer lacks.

The rarely taken Thumper turret is the one in the most need of improvement. As a supposed “tanky” turret, the Thumper offers little in the way of threat through damage or CC to encourage enemies to target it. Thankfully, 2 changes will make it a useful skill to slot.
The toolbelt ability Shockwave can keep its 60 second CD, if it were made a stunbreak. With 0 cast time in line with other turret abilities, and the thumper turret’s inherent design intention to be an “anti-melee” turret, making Shockwave break stun will be a change that will encourage turret engineers to slot it.

A secondary effect such as Cripple or Weakness for 5 seconds within its AOE will further emphasise its role also, and fit with the main Thumper turret attack that cripples foes within its AOE.

Thinking about turrets has also given me ideas to improve upon them as well.

Turrets suffer from multiple issues right now, that hamper their effectiveness in PvE, PvP, and WvW.

• Turrets die to collateral damage too easily right now, even while traited for turret survivability. They do not scale with player vitality or toughness.
• Putting down a turret does not tick down the cooldown until the turret is picked up again, or destroyed/detonated. This further hampers an engineer’s mobility with turrets, and it is crippling to lose a turret to AOE.
• In addition, picking up a turret only reduces its cooldown by 25%. Considering that Rocket and Thumper turret have 50 sec CDs, a 25% CD reduction from full is still quite long
• Turret toolkit abilities are underwhelming for the most part, and do not shore up weaknesses in a turret engineer’s arsenal. They mostly offer damage, which, given the sufficient DPS of emplaced turrets, is hardly required.
• Turret overcharge abilities do not reset the turret attack cooldown. Given that some turrets fire only once every 10 seconds, like the Net Turret, it is entirely possible that turrets are AOE’d down and destroyed before the overcharge goes off.

It is clear that the weaknesses, cooldowns, health, and effects of turrets were balanced around them being semi-permanent entities. The toolkit repairing turrets further reinforces this conclusion.

• But what if turrets were instead balanced around them being fully disposable? *

Let us imagine now the following:

• Placing a turret down begins to tick down the cooldown for the turret. At the end of the cooldown, the emplaced turret self-destructs.
  This change would make AOE damage destroying turrets a lot less crippling than previously. In PvP, this would encourage opponents to destroy turrets as soon as they are placed. This would be fully intended, because damage going to turrets is not going to the engineer.

• Picking up a turret reduces its current cooldown by 50%
  This change is mostly WvW and PvP focused, where smart opponents exist. In addition to the first change, this could result in some clutch moments where the engineer shaves crucial seconds off his cooldowns if the opponent targets the turret. In PvE, this would increase engineer mobility and allow the engineer to set up his turret base in different locations more often.

• Turret overcharges reset the attack timer on the turret, but destroy the turret at the end of the overcharge duration. However, turrets are invulnerable to damage whilst on overcharge.
  This change is the most dramatic one, and in my view the one thing that will make turrets an attractive slot choice. It seems silly, but bear with me for a moment.
  Overcharges making the turret invulnerable would finally eliminate the annoying chance that a turret can be destroyed during overcharge. Resetting the attack timer will also lead to more clutch plays in PvP.
  The self-destruct at the end of overcharge is to balance the fact that turret CD will be ticking down the whole while. It also emphasises the engineer’s class flavour to have their gadgets destroy themselves at the end of giving an enhanced performance.

I don’t think it would be wrong of me to say that turrets are a little underused right now.

One of the issues with slotting turrets for engineers is that it takes up a slot that would normally be used for a stunbreaker, or a kit. The engineer class is unique in that it is largely dictated in playstyle by the utility slots, rather than the mainhand/offhand weapons.

Slotting a turret means to give up 5 skills in a kit right now. Fully supporting a turret build through traits requires a massive investment of 60 trait points (!!) and 5 major trait slots (!!!) for:

• Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets
• Inventions III – Metal Plating
• Inventions X – Autotool Installation
• Inventions XII – Rifled Turret Barrels
• Tools V – Deployable Turrets

Even after all that, running turrets in all utility slots and slotting the Healing turret for the heal still leaves the engineer without:

• A reliable condi-cleanse (The upcoming patch may make this point outdated given that Cleansing Burst CD will be reduced to 20 sec)
• A stunbreaker
• A reliable source of mobility – The best form of engineer mobility is only through traited kits at the moment.

Compare this with the Alchemy trait line, where X: Cleaning formula 409 gives a full bar of elixirs multiple condition cleanses, easy access to stunbreakers that are fully supported by traits (Alchemy II), along with access to highly potent defensive and defensive boons through traits and through the elixirs themselves.

Whilst it is clear that the Inventions trait line is intended to support turrets, spreading traits through another 2 lines can be crippling.
In my view, Metal Plating and Autotool Installation should be combined, and Accelerant Packed Turrets moved from the Explosives line into the Inventions line. Rifled Turret Barrels can stay Grandmaster because it is a build-defining trait to take.
This would free up 20 trait points that can be used to shore up other deficiencies in a full turret build.
With the upcoming April patch, Anet has shown newly found willingness to combine and alter traits, as seen in the Warrior’s boon hate changes. Anet should look at doing the same for Engineer traits as well.